Thanksgiving Tales of Terror!!!!

Well, not really. But I thought that might grab my readers' attention. I survived Thanksgiving again. As I sat at my family dinner table eyeballing all the entrees I couldn't help but speculate how things might have been different had this continent been conquered and subjugated by Greece or perhaps Thailand.

With the exception of the cranberries everything was brown.We had all the usual and accustomed dishes: pumpkin pie from a can, genetically modified hormonally enhanced industrial turkey, a green vegetable disguised by something crunchy and brown from a can, mom's seafood salad, mashed potatoes  and some other brown stuff.

I brought nothing so I can't complain. I did, however, have  the adventure of shopping with my sister on the day before and that was an eye opener.We needed preformed pie crust and some ingredients for a broccoli dish. The broccoli dish required the addition of cream of something soup just like the pilgrims had so we went to that boomer comfort section called Campbell's Soup.

Ask any boomer if they remember grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell's tomato soup. Most will get a warm fuzzy smile. That was something mom served on cold days. It tasted good. Cheese and tomatoes! A lot of us tore small bites of our sandwiches and dunked them in the thin red brothy soup. Every now and then if you were lucky you found a chunk of tomato but that was rare.

I had not visited this section since childhood so just for fun I read the labels of random cans. Without fail every single can of Campbell's soup I picked up contained my nemesis, my arch enemy: MSG. I have to admit. I felt betrayed. The icon of wholesome cold war boomer America when everything was simple and you left your doors unlocked and you knew all your neighbors and the names of all their pets was full of.....poison.

I never did understand mashed potatoes much. I know they comfort the palates of many Americans but I can't help but think that any other vegetable reduced to such a mushy state would be called baby food. I think mainly they are a delivery device for butter and gravy. I just see so many different things one could create with those starchy edible tubers.

The one delight was three different kinds of deli gourmet olives....just like the pilgrims had. These were certainly different than the canned generic black olives of my youth. Clearly, there had been a few changes. I was too old and my fingers too large for the olives to fit but I scarfed them down by the handful. Yummy.

That's what started my speculation about the different possibilities for this American tradition. What if we all sat down each November to a meal of stuffed grape leaves, leg of lamb and baklava? What if the entrees included stir fried vegetable in curry coconut sauce? What if all of us Anglos acknowledged the Hispanic heritage of Turtle Island with some pico de gallo? Maybe we could support some of the Midwest Tribes by cooking some indigenous wild rice? What if we insisted our corn and cornbread was not genetically modified, that it came unaltered...wild and free.

Thanksgiving is made up holiday anyway with a sordid past. The story is one of those comfortable myths we all grew up with. We like to believe these myths because it allows us to go about our daily lives guilt free on conquered soil with bellies full of MSG soup just like Mom made.

I wsa a freeloader this year so I really have no right to complain about anything. I had not done Thanksgiving in many years but I am already planning for next year. There's gonna be a little red in my dishes.

Landing and Launching:101 Checkins and Checkouts: Installment #9

17 Cell phone picture-

Preparation time:

Materials: Make sure each person has a cell phone. If this is not the case and only one or two people don't have one ask if they will share.

Procedure:

(a)    Tell students that unlike other days they get to keep their cell phones on.

(b)   Ask students to take a few pictures during the course of the activity.

(c)    Be sure to get permission from all participants to have their pictures taken.

Alternatives:

(a)     If you are cell less, instruct students to stop every now and then and  take mental pictures during the course of the activity.

(b)    Have available a remote control or a device that makes an audible click.

(c)    Pass the device around and ask students to view the pictures “telepathically.”

Notes: This check out is best when your group experience involves activities in which participants are moving around.

18 Slogan Buttons

Preparation time: Five minutes plus a shopping trip

Materials: 30-50 buttons with clever sayings, quotes and slogans

Procedure:

1: Group check-in

(a)    Spread the buttons out in the center of your circle.

(b)   Participants choose 1-3 buttons to express their current emotional state

2: Partner check-in

(a)    Have two of each type of button

(b)   Participants choose one button and then find another person that chose the same button.

(c)    These two participants share with each other why that particular button reflects their present state.

3: Partner check-in #2

(a)    Each person selects one button which reflects their current emotional state.

(b)   Instruct participants to find a partner who has a button least like theirs.

(c)    These two participants share with each other their present emotional state.

l  Following either of the partner check-ins you can bring the group together. With permission each person share their partner's check-in with the whole group. This reinforces listening skills and bring the group together.

Alternatives:

l  If your school or organization has a button machine you can make your own set for next to nothing.

l  If you get tired of buttons try bumper stickers.

l  Following either of the partner check-ins you can bring the group together

Notes: Credit Jennifer Stanchfield with the genesis of this idea. I generally use this strategy with older students in recovery from substance abuse so my buttons are a little edgier (“Why are all the important people self absorbed assholes?”). With younger perhaps elementary audiences you can use simple words or just images.

Activity Credit: Adapted from Jennifer Stanchfield’s conference presentations.

19 Shaped Carabiners

Preparation time: Five minutes plus a shopping trip

Materials: A variety of mini carabiners with interesting shapes

Procedure:

1-----Inside option

(a)    Lay the items in the center of the group

(b)   Instruct participants to select 1-3 which reflect their present emotional state

2----Outside option

(a)    If you are lucky enough to be outside hang your carabiners visibly in trees or scatter them around a field (remember where you put them)

(b)   Instruct participants to close their eyes and internally reflect on their present emotional state or state of mind.

(c)    After a tolerable amount of time (varies from group to group) instruct participants to walk around your outdoor area and return within 1-3 minutes with a mini carabiner that matches their “head space.”

(d)   Participants share which carabiner they chose with the group and why it reflects their present state.

Alternatives: This is another activity that is easy to do in partners. See Slogan Buttons

Notes: At most outdoor stores you can find a variety of mini carabiners with non utilitarian but fun shapes. My set includes among others the ubiquitous hearts, geckos, mini climbers and arrows. If you are operating a high ropes course and you use a variety of different types of carabiners just use those. Perhaps you have self locking, screwgate and gear carabiners. For example the old style screwgates required a different level of consciousness since you always had to triple check that they were locked. A lot of  vibration could unscrew the threads. You don't have to worry as much about the self locking carabiners since they lock on their own. Unlike the screwgates you can't see what's happening on the inside Both represent different advantages and disadvantages.Use those and save time by narrowing choices.

20 Bendies

Preparation time: 5 minutes plus a shopping trip

Materials: 10-15 bendies. Bendies are available at most novelty stores. I have an eclectic set which includes a six armed person with the traditional red dot, a punk rocker and a salesman. Many outdoor stores now have outdoor themed miniature bendies with sport themes.

Procedure:

(1)   Place your bendies in the center of the circle.

(2)   Explain to participants that bendies are the most flexible of creatures. We all would benefit from being as flexible as bendies.

(3)   Instruct participants to choose a bendie which best reflects their present state of mind or emotional state.

(4)   After participants have chosen a bendie instruct them to shape the bendie into a shape which further reflects their emotional state or state of mind. Most people will naturally do this.

Alternatives

Notes: Although I am not a bendie historian the original bendie was most likely Gumby and his horse Pokey. There is something captivating about bendies. They invite constant twisting and reshaping. Even if you don't choose this activity, I highly suggest investing in a few bendies for your group room or bag of goodies. Give that kid who can't stay still or quit interrupting a bendie to hold during group and you might be pleasantly surprised!

The Evolution of a Foodie

About ten or so years ago I held vastly different notions of what real food was but I believed I had an awareness. I drank A&W root beer because it had no caffeine. In retrospect I see this like my father's logic when he drank Coors beer.because it had no preservatives. I had not yet developed a consciousness around HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but I did know about caffeine. I ate industrial chicken before I knew the reality of industrial meat. Since that time I gave up chicken because it appears to be the worst of all the industrial meats. Free range organic chicken costs too much and often the term free range is a misnomer. Most free range chickens have only a few square feet to "range." At least cows see the light of day but their condition is not much different.

As far as my meat supply went I am fortunate enough to live in area where I can hunt and at the same time have the luxury of buying quality meat from local growers if I choose (just in case the hunting doesn't work out). I decided long ago that I would not partake of the swine. Seeing how hog waste pollutes most waterways of the Midwest I gave it up for environmental reasons. Plus I figured that two major world religions couldn't be wrong. Both the Jewish and Islamic faiths strictly ban pork. This taboo comes not just from religious superstition. Historically pork was known to be a primary cause of trichinosis. More recent research indicates that your body reacts to pork ingestion in the same way it reacts to other carcinogens.

Salads have always been a staple of my lunch and dinner. I used to drench my spinach in ranch dressing or something similar. One day I started reading the labels of those dressings and I was shocked to find....you guessed it...HFCS. I gave up dressing or just made my own from yogurt or balsamic vinegars and olive oil. I reached a certain point in my salad eating evolution where I just gave up dressing altogether and started to enjoy the natural subtle flavors of the raw vegetables and greens.

The greatest stimulus to actively pursue more knowledge about what I was putting in my body actually came from observing the people in the school environment. Almost every coach I have ever seen sports a huge belly that would make any Billy Bob proud. Teachers, because of their hectic schedules and their frequent indulgence in school lunches battled obesity. But it was the swelling students that caught my attention.

I have been running high ropes courses for more years than I can remember now. The conventional wisdom (back in the day) was that any person in average shape could participate successfully in the course. In the last five or so years i have noticed that an increasing number of students could not even lift their own weight once. They simply had too much body mass!

When I talk to most members of my boomer generation, almost without fail they can remember the one or two obese kids in their class. A young man who looked at a class picture from the '70s exclaimed that everybody looked so skinny until a boomer informed him that that's just how kids looked back then,

With all these observations and experience swirling around the whirlpool in the deep blue lagoon of my mind,
I just started asking questions. People a lot smarter than me have been asking better questions for quite some time now. Authors like Erich Schlosser who wrote "Fast Food Nation" and films like Food Inc. spurred my quest for knowledge.By far the most thought provoking book I read was The Omnivore's Dilemma . There are quite a few films and books out there now exposing the industrial food machine for what it is.

These days the little meat I consume is organic and raised in an ethical, respectful and responsible way. I wish I could afford all organic vegetables but I can't so I buy a mix of both. I eat a lot of brown rice and fresh fruit. And I must say I look pretty damn good for 49.

When I walk into different environments and observe the food habits of my friends and coworkers I try to balance education and compassion. One man, who recently quit smoking, consumes energy drinks and Slim Fast. I remember when I tried to lose weight and tried the Slim Fast approach. Only later did I discover it contains HFCS.

Health in America is going to have to be an evolution. The nation of teletubbies that we have become has been fifty years in the making. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to reverse it!

The Heretic's Guide to Working With Kids: Installment #5

l  Missionaries, Mystics, Mentors,  Mavericks and Masters

Missionaries

I have been involved in the alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention field for nearly 14 years. Like many in my field I am a 'recovering alcoholic.' With over 20 years of sobriety I can now view my present with the disdain of hindsight. I started out as a missionary like most other folks in this field. I wanted to save every single student that came my way from the ravages of the disease of addiction....

Missionaries start out with a set of cultural assumptions. They assume that their way is right, that the way of others is inferior and that their God Given task is to convert all the ignorant heathens to the true and right path. Missionaries begin and end with dogma. Never wavering in their task, they have a frightening certainty that they are right and everybody else is wrong.

The missionary stance begins with the peculiar Western position of Good and Evil. In this cosmic epi-tragic comedy, they represent the forces of light and Good. Drugs, the people who use them and everything associated with it is Evil. Bearing the sword of righteousness, they bring their programs, techniques and media to bear down upon the infidel. Notions such as the medical use of marijuana do not fit easily into this duality and are thus dismissed as bad science.

Data, research, measurement and evaluation are the hallmarks of the true believers. Any approach which cannot be quantified and distilled into a curriculum that all must use is suspect. This path, of course, creates enormous bureaucracies and institutions. The weight and enormity of all that data, the books, pamphlets, videos and surveys needs buildings to be housed in, cocky young data heads, managers, their supervisors and of course...forms.

Outreach is fundamental in the roots of America's approach to alcoholism. The curious dichotomy of Alcoholics Anonymous which states on one hand “attraction rather than promotion” and sends an army of simple minded zealots into the heather through the 12^th step creates a subcultural schizophrenia in the recovering community. They must convert everybody they can but not tell anybody. They have to remain anonymous.

Prevention missionaries initially started with the belief that if they just told everybody their truth, then of course all would see and everybody would be saved. They felt no need to pay attention to simple developmental psychology, Maslow or even the casual observations of teachers who tried to tell them that giving middle schoolers information about anything just made them curious. The missionary model, beginning with the cultural assumptions of good and evil, created albatrosses like DARE. DARE relied not only on the information model and scare tactics. They also created a police state situation in which students were encouraged and rewarded if they turned in their parents.

The incredible acceptance and funding which this program received testified to its alignment with Western modes of thinking. It ignored such possibilities as dirty cops and denied mountains of research which generally indicated that DARE generally only resulted in “better informed users.”

Anomaly and Hypocrisy are the twin flags of the missionary. “If you use drugs (tobacco, alcohol, etc) then someday you're going to die” becomes easily interchangeable with “if you don't believe like we do then someday you will go to hell.” “Someday” is not a concept that most kids will ever understand. What is worse, in the case of those who begin abusing substances early in life and so never reach developmental milestones, “someday” is just another abstraction.

The missionary philosophy manifests itself through campaigns (crusades}, task forces, local advisory boards and in the school system through “prevention clubs.” The end goal of course is to create more missionaries and ultimately a body of believers who have been saved...........

I have a fat bias. I admit it. I own it. I joke with people that while some girls have a biological clock which logically results in teenage pregnancy, my family has a fat clock in which we can only press the snooze button. With this knowledge, I religiously exercise, watch my diet and do an internal cleanse twice a year.

With this baggage in mind I sat dumbfounded through an all day presentation about the evils of tobacco from a presenter who was easily pushing 400 pounds. She was a walking heart attack warning kids about health issues. Prevention missionaries love data but they also select their data carefully. America's court jester Mark Twain warned us over 100 years ago that: “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Cruising with tunnel vision down the war on drugs highway with the warning of “someday” and “death.” we are often just part of the background chatter in a noisy information world.

Mystics

Mystics are often full of shit but it is entertaining shit. Mystics by nature are searchers, questioners and heretics. You will only rarely find them at the top of the large bureaucracies created by the counseling industry. Heretics love to point out such discrepancies as the obesity created by the junk food industry and use the system's numbers against them. There are some 450,000 deaths from tobacco, 360,000 deaths from obesity and over 100,000 deaths from what the Harvard Medical Review calls “medical misadventure.” Heretics like me love to point these things out. I have suggested that if we are going to use punishment, interdiction and incarceration as primary approaches then all addictions should be punished equally. This would put the obese donut eating cop in the same cell as the heroin junkie and  the person who consumes resources than the planet can sustain. Move over tweaker, you're bunking with Bill Gates tonight!

  They like to ask questions about the role of sugar and nutrition in behavior. Perhaps we should do yoga, jog or do tai-chi before we medicate that client...

The immature mystic is full of answers, solutions and anecdotes. “Mrs Dawson, if your class would do 7 sun salutations per day you would have no behavior problems all day long.” As my good friend and veteran Bill Smith knows, “shit is what happens when plans hit the light of day.” Fuzzy logic based mostly on personal but not universal experience..... Mystics in their personal search for truth often find it. With a missionary ethos buried in their subconscious they assume that their truth will work for everybody ....

The mature mystic may have discovered many truths in her search. The truth searcher surfing the noosphere may have gone through multiple cycles of questing; each truth and samadhi in a spiral to the center of the truth. She recognizes that each path has is its joys and foibles. The modern archetype for the mystic is the character of Socrates in “The Way of The Peaceful Warrior.” He has attained some degree of wisdom and remains at a certain level to help others stumbling the path.

That each person must find their own truth and their own path remains central to the mystic. Missionaries find this approach heresy. When this approach comes to the visceral level is becomes painful. In the addictions field it is unfortunate but true that some people never quit using. The missionary will beat his head against the wall and stoop so low as to become severely codependent with such clients. The mystic mourns quietly and prays that this sufferer will sort things out but also recognizes that each has his path in this world with lessons he cannot steal from them.

Like Socrates, the mystic is demanding, elusive, cranky and paradoxical. In the white savior motif movie “The Last Samurai” Tom Cruise, the typical cocky American approaches the master Samurai with his boken assured that enough energy and confidence will see him through. After being knocked to the ground multiple times, he looks quizzically at the master who tells him “You! Have too many minds.”

In Post Mall America, the mystic's task is doubly difficult. Today's average adolescent is so disconnected from themselves and has so much misinformation clogging their brain stems that the first task is not just to unplug the pipe but to destroy the pipeline entirely.

When I think of mentors, I think of grandpas and grandmas, kind sweet faces no longer worried about wrinkles or accomplishments. Every place you have been they have been there before. Every struggle you struggle they have walked through. They will listen with kindness to your challenges and assure at the end of the conversation that everything you are experiencing is normal, that you are okay and you will emerge intact.

Mentors listen with kindness to your new diet, all about your latest romance, your recent discovery of an age old truth. Acceptance of the searcher exactly where he is at is the code of the mentor. There are some along the path who pose as mentors. In truth they are “tormentors.” Tormentors are interested mainly in their own power. They enjoy one up/one down relationships. Their delight comes from feeling that there is at least one person in the world who is less than them....

Mavericks are the loose cannons of the counseling world. In their ideal state they are pure flow. They may dip into mystic posturing but never rest there. If the mood strikes, they may feel the need to preach and convert the masses to the new agenda, curriculum, program or thought but this rarely lasts. When they make a personal connection with a student, they become a mentor. Mavericks do not attach themselves to any approach but the approach that works at the time.

On their shadow side, immature mavericks become cynical and bitter. They reject all philosophies and so do nothing. They sit in their office and surf the net. They died but forgot to tell anybody....

  MASTERS

Lynn Duus is a master. She does everything I would never do. She helps whatever class she is advising sell donuts and hot chocolate in the mornings as a fund raiser in a school and town with an incredible obesity problem. There is a jar on her desk full of Hershey's chocolate kisses that brings a steady stream of sugar junkies to her office between classes. She is the only Republican in a school full of Democrats and she is an unapologetic Roman Catholic faithful church goer who accepts people of all faiths.

She has taken the time to learn the ropes course and some fun activities but she would not be considered a master of any of these disciplines. She crosses multiple lines of counseling professionalism. She buys clothes and shoes for students who seem to have none. She also has a small stash of granola and energy bars stashed in her desk for students who don't get breakfast. She has even taken students home to live with her. She is by many counseling standards “unprofessional.” She is a Zen master who could not even tell you what that means.

She may or may not say it but she teaches love and she has become wise. Despite her conservative politics and world view, she falls short when it comes to rules, discipline and organization. She would much rather talk a student through an agitated state  than send him to the office to face detention and suspension. She believes that such states of mind are opportunity for breakthrough rather than the time to restore order.

Like most counselors, she has a star pupil. Lorenzo is by any stretch of the imagination, an orphan. His story is familiar to those in my field. His mother was incapacitated by her disease of addiction. His father due to police state views of immigration had to stay in Mexico, his only crime being his nationality, place of birth and perhaps being poor and brown. Lorenzo's older brother John took on the task of parenting. He made sure Lorenzo woke up, arrived at school on time fed and ready to learn. When Lorenzo was in the sixth grade, the river took John's physical form forever. He drowned on a bright sunny day in July during a low water run tubing run.

The odds were against John's death. The river was the lowest it had been in years. Tubing was a daily activity that nobody thought much about. John's tube, however, drifted into a log on a tight bend and he became trapped underneath that log and drowned. Lorenzo shut down not long afterward. A kid who used to be goofy, squirrelly and mischievous began to harden. It was a slow process but by the time he was in middle school Lorenzo was smoking and beginning to experiment with alcohol and other drugs.

As such things go he was soon on probation and the legal system had their talons in him. He went through all the usual stuff; anger management, moral recognition therapy, reality therapy and of course medication. He was a wonderfully resistant client. Nothing seemed to take hold.

Until Lynn came along.

Landing and Launching: 101 Checkins and Checkouts: Installment #8

14 Tattoos

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: A variety of fake tattoos and a small bowl of water for application.

Procedure:

(a)    Place fake tattoos in center of circle

(b)   Instruct participants to select three tattoos; one for how their day went, one for how they want tomorrow to be, and one for a hope for their future.

Alternatives: As a feedback exercise, have group members by consensus select a tattoo for each member. This can occur at the end of a day long retreat or as a seasonal shift activity.

Notes: Although this is generally a low risk activity, there are some cultures which forbid any sort of body adornment. American culture has come a long way in accepting tattoos. They are now more common than not but to quote the man who taught me to be a river guide: “If you must err, err on the side of caution.”

15 Student make own cards

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Materials: Old magazines, 3x5 cards, glue sticks, scissors (one pair per person)

Procedure:

(a)    Have the laminator ready

(b)   Instruct participants that they are going to make their own set of permanent check in cards using old magazines.

(c)    Cards should reflect feelings that most group members can connect to.

(d)   Distribute old magazines and scissors and 3x5 cards.

(e)    Instruct students to lay out their card designs.

(f)    Then and only then distribute glue sticks.*

Alternatives: You can easily bring this activity up to the computer age by doing it on computers.

Notes: I have had some of my most creative and revealing cards emerge from this deceptively simple project. What a student may not be able to voice they will sometimes put on a card. Less mature students may want to put up pictures of scantily clad women or alcohol. In this case I tell them that they are free to make those but they will not be part of the permanent group set.

*I have discovered through experience that if you give out glue sticks at the beginning students will immediately start plastering images on cards. Waiting for glue sticks will encourage them to be more mindful.

16 COLOR SWATCHES

Preparation time:

Materials: Absolutely Free! Go to your local hardware store and ask for all the color swatches you can get. You can use pieces of construction paper but there is a much more infinite variety of shades of color at the hardware store.

Procedure: Explain that historically colors have represented different primary human emotions. Although it may be redundant you may want to use the following list:

(a)    Red: Anger

(b)   Blue: Sadness

(c)    Green: Jealousy and Envy

(d)   Yellow:

(e)    Brown:

(f)    Black

(g)   White

(h)   Purple: Higher consciousness

Explain further that emotions generally go on a scale of intensity.

Lay out the colors in  a spectrum from lightest to darkest. For example, a pale shade of pink represents only mildly angry whereas dark pulsing red represents rage

Notes: Different cultures may have different connotations for different colors. For example in one culture red represents unity because red is the color of blood no matter what color skin you have

Integrated School Health Tip#7: Sugar Mamas and Sugar Daddies

Nope. Sorry. This is not that rich man you were hoping to find on match.com or the gorgeous female widower heiress who has suddenly taken a liking to you. These are real people who are part of a real problem: childhood obesity.

If you work in schools or other institutions that serve youth or live in a neighborhood with kids you have met these people. She is the teacher with the great big jar of candy on her desk or the counselor who hands out mountain dew as part of the counseling session. I used to look at these people as relatively harmless. They just wanted to make kids feel good. Sugar tastes good. Sugar makes kids feel good. What's the problem?

Now I see sugar mamas and sugar daddies as part of the problem.

It seems so innocuous. It's hard to connect that friendly face handing out soda pops and candy bars to a lifetime of diabetes and all its complications but that's the way we need to start seeing these people. The statistics are in. Over 350,000 people die from obesity related causes. This is second only to tobacco with its approximately 450,000 victims.

From a strictly behavioral standpoint rewards are a bad idea. It reduces children to the status of dogs being trained to fetch a ball.

"Rewards are no more helpful at enhancing achievement than they are at
fostering good values. At least two dozen studies have shown that people
expecting to receive a reward for completing a task (or for doing it successfully)
simply do not perform as well as those who expect nothing (Kohn, 1993)."

 

Of the many ways to change behavior, punishment and reward are the least effective. Our overflowing prison systems are ample evidence of this. I still remember an incident from my own junior high experience back in 1975. I was sitting on the table in the cafeteria. A male teacher walked by and told me to get off the table.Like a good teenager I did so until he left. As soon as he was out of sight I sat back on the table. He came by two more times and each time I was sitting on the table. After the third time he marched me to his room and gave me a "hack." For the uninitiated, a "hack" was a legal form of physical abuse back in those days.In my school it was the males who administered this abuse.They took great pride in their prowess and each had their own special wooden board. You generally were forced to grab your ankles and then endure at least one swat with a wooden paddle.

This changed nothing for me. But I did learn to keep a wary eye out for that teacher in much the same way I would watch for the school bully.

 

Rewards and bribes are just the flip side of punishment. They elicit the same range of emotional responses.Kids who do not get a reward while others do endure the same level of shame and embarrassment as does the child who is publicly punished.

 

This is all well known psychology. I am not making news here.

 

I hear a variety of rationalizations from the sugar mamas and daddies. One person tells me she does it so kids will come into her office and talk to her. In my over 25 years of youth work I have never had to bribe a kid to come into my office with anything. I have always had a steady stream of young clients. Another teacher explains that if he doesn't have his soda reward system he can't get the kids to do anything. I have a radical response to this now. I used to be more tactful.

If you have to bribe kids with soda or candy to get them to do something, perhaps you should consider another profession.

In my years as an alcohol, tobacco, alcohol and other drug counselor I am always asked what I consider to be the gateway drug. I inevitably point to the pop machine. Pepsi and Coke, not marijuana and cigarettes are the original gateway drugs. They set up the brain's reward centers for addiction on multiple levels. If you doubt this, think about what happens when alcoholics quit drinking and smokers quit smoking. Their sugar intake increases. They revert to the source addiction.

 

You may know my thinking by now: With the lifetime of health risks and misery obese children will endure I see sugar mamas and sugar daddies as just different types of dealers. If we feel a need to contribute to their diabetes because of our own lack of skills we need to rethink everything, perhaps even the entire school system but that's a longer essay.